standards

Having worked in the IT industry for over 14 years, and having worked in the classroom for over 5 years I am always looking for new material for the students. Sybex has made a reputation for releasing first rate material in the Cisco certification arena and this book is no exception to that rule.

In over 1000 pages every CCIE Routing and Switching Exam objective is covered and explained. I found the authors to be not thorough but also very detailed. I also found that the material, while complex and highly technical, to written to a level that is intermediate rather to than advanced or expert level.

One thing I notice was the book covers the written and lab exams, this is the first book I have seen like this. As it comes with several labs to practice with and hundreds of practice questions you have what appears to be a complete study guide.

I found that Chapter 8, especially the CIDR and VLSM, explanations were very well explained and it cleared up a couple of questions for me. The cd, as with other Sybex books, has the e-book and practice exams included. Overall I think this a one to look at for those going or the CCIE R&S certification.

This is a GREAT book, as I first used the Cisco Press R&S Written exam guide by Anthony Bruno, but the Cisco Press book does not provide any in-depth information, it only provides an introduction then points to a URL on the Cisco website. The Sybex CCIE Study Guide provides extremely in-depth coverage of the material, and it is written in everyday language so that it is easy to comprehend. I defintely recommend the Sybex book, and although there are errors in the book, go to the Sybex website and get the FREE Errata for this book, and you will have a great CCIE study guide and on-the-job reference.

I wanted a tool to review this topics I forgot since I passed my Lab such as DLSW, Bridging, Token Ring, MultiCast, WAN... I failed on a first passed 69% instead of 70%! and then got it on the second pass 3 days later and one day before the end of my certif validation with 76%.
In this book the topics are fairly well covered and offered a good synthesis. However the review questions are too light not of the level of the exam which also include some simple questions (but coverage is so large !).

For someone preparing the lab exam as well, I would recommend to use on the Cisco Web site: 1) the Configuration guides and 2) the "Overview", "Implementation and Configuration" and "Verification and Troubleshooting" pages that you access with www.cisco.com -> Technical Support -> Technology support -> Topic of your choice (e.g. IP Multicast). They are really good and covered usual and sophisticated config and known problems and solutions.
CCIE # 9285